Of Angels, Aliens, and Hooded Figures
by Hermione Pond
Summary: SuperWhoLock. A strange town arouses the curiosity of the Winchesters, as well as the Doctor and the two men he has happened to pick up in London. What are the strange hooded figures that roam the dog park? Why are people kidnapped in the dead of night for no apparent reason? And what on earth is the Glow Cloud? Read and review!
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I would recommend listening to the Welcome to Night Vale podcast before reading this, if you haven't. It can be found for free online. Enjoy!**

* * *

><p>"Nothing for three days."<p>

Sam Winchester shut his laptop and leaned back, looking disgruntled. "Three days, Dean."

"Dude, chill." Sam's older (but shorter) brother barely glanced in Sam's direction as he spoke; too absorbed was he in the leftover apple pie. The two of them sat on opposite beds: Sam with his legs crossed, staring malcontentedly at his closed laptop, Dean on his stomach with a plate in front of him. They were illuminated by a yellowish, flickering lamp. Courtesy of today's crappy hotel.

"You _know _that nothing good comes from- aaauggghhhh! Stop _doing _that!" Sam nearly fell off the bed, startled by the man who had not been there a second before. "Would it kill you to knock?"

Castiel blinked and wordlessly rapped his knuckles against the cheap hotel quilt. "Is that better?"

"No, on the- oh, you know what, never mind."

"Why do you grace us with your presence?" asked Dean, his mouth full. Sam noted- slightly amused- that his brother looked in the direction of the angel as he spoke. Sam had been awarded no such civility.

"I've been summoned."

Dean raised his eyebrows. "Sammy, did you summon him?"

"No. See, I thought it would be _you_."

"No, I was not called by either of you," Cas interrupted. "I was called by an elderly woman named Josie."

"So?" Dean went back to eating, appearing vaguely irritated by this interference with the all-important task of devouring pie. "Why come to us about it?"

"Well... Josie comes from a rather odd town. It's called Night Vale."

"Never heard of it," said Sam. He leaned forward and opened his laptop. Waited for Google to load- the Wi-Fi was slow here. And typed _Night Vale _into the search bar.

The results were very disappointing, and very curious. "Well," said Sam, "it's somewhere in the South. In a desert."

"And?" Dean had finished the rest of the apple pie and was now able to pay more attention to the goings-on around him.

"And... nothing. There is literally nothing else. Wait- no. It has a radio show called _Welcome to Night Vale_, but you can't access it outside of the city. But nothing other than _that. _Weird." Sam leaned back, still scrolling down to see if any of the other results were relevant. But other than that, there was nothing. He turned to Cas. "Do you know anything about this place?"

"No." Castiel's response was short and clipped. "This is why I came to you. My brethren are often called there, but it is not a place we know anything about."

"Do you know if the inhabitants are human?" Dean was already rummaging around for his fake FBI badge.

"As far as I can tell, they are." Castiel winced as an FBI badge flew across the space between the two beds and hit him in the face. Sam managed to catch his, which was surprising, as he was engrossed in whatever was on his screen at the moment.

"Awesome. Sammy, find out where it is."

"Way ahead of you." Sam turned his computer towards his brother. "Somewhere in the South, right? Well, I was able to find a neighboring town called Desert Bluffs. Lots more information about this place. We could just go there and ask for directions."

"If they don't feed us to the desert gods first," mumbled Dean.

Cas cocked his head to the side in his signature confused way. "I don't understand. There are no desert gods-"

"Dean is just being cynical," clarified Sam, rather loudly and pointedly. "Not everyone we meet has to be insane."

"Says you," scoffed Dean, getting to his feet.

* * *

><p>The Doctor and John were having the time of their lives, but Sherlock was having a meltdown. He had, since entering the TARDIS, taken to sitting on the steps leading to the console, his long legs drawn up, muttering to himself about physics. All logic he had relied on had just been defied.<p>

For example, it was a truth universally acknowledged that blue police boxes were not, in fact, time machines controlled by overtalkative madmen with- admittedly- great hair. Perhaps an unspoken truth, but a truth nonetheless. Right?

Well, apparently not.

"So what does this thing do?" asked John, pointing to a reddish-purple pinstriped thing that looked rather like a miniature alien microwave. The Doctor looked down at it and smiled widely.

"That," he said proudly, "can make the world's greatest hamburger. Mind you, I said world's, not universe's, because I know a fellow in Atlantia who can make a hamburger so good you'll be ruined for any other hamburger for at least ten days."

"Amazing!" John gazed happily at the oddly-coloured microwave thing. A lifelong fan of Star Trek and other such science fiction media, he was thrilled to be in the presence of an alien. Unlike Sherlock, he accepted it all with ease.

The Doctor beamed. "Would you like to go somewhere?"

"Really?" John practically bubbled over with excitement. Sherlock, from where he sat on the steps, almost rolled his eyes at such a blatant display of human emotion.

"Anywhere you like," said the Doctor. He grinned at his new friend, glad to have met someone who shared his childlike infatuation with adventure.

"I don't know if I could decide," said John thoughtfully, running his fingers over the bottoms and switches and dials on the console. "Anywhere in the universe..."

"And any time, too. Well, except for the 1930s, but who cares about that. Really can't decide?" John shook his head. "Okay. Let's see where she takes us." The Doctor flipped a switch and immediately the control room was filled with the whooshing noise of the TARDIS engine.

* * *

><p><em>Today, a British police box from the 1960s appeared by the Arby's. You know, the one with the strange lights about 100 feet up? No one has yet to come out of it. The Sheriff's Secret Police have it surrounded, so don't worry! This new lovely addition to our town won't harm your children a bit...<em>

_More news concerning the British police box from the 1960s. Three men have come out of it. Two of them wear coats. Perhaps it is a fashion trend, listeners! I don't know about you, but I love to keep up with the current trends..._

_Returning to the topic of the British police box: the mayor has issued a statement that it does not exist. When asked why we can all see it, she looked deep into the reporter's eyes and whispered, "You are all delusional..."_

_And now, the weather._


	2. Chapter 2

"What kind of place doesn't have a Burger King?" Dean was infuriated. He had been driving for hours, and they were now in the middle of nowhere, with no food. The last restaurant they had seen was an hour behind them. Not to mention, the only classic rock radio station available was mostly static and seemed to be playing the same five songs on a loop.

"A desert," supplied Cas, helpfully. Dean scowled at the road.

"Living on a Prayer" started playing for the fifteenth time that day, at least by Sam's count. Sam tried to focus harder on his book, so that he could ignore Dean and Cas's bickering; it was not a particularly good book, but it was better than listening to them argue.

The scenery went by for another half hour without much change. Sand dunes on both sides, a sun-bleached road between. The sun was ridiculously bright and hot in the endless blue sky.

"There's a house!" called Dean at last, triumphantly.

"I told you," replied Cas. Dean made a face and Sam looked up from his book. There was, indeed, a house. Rather small and run-down, perhaps, but a house. And on the horizon, there was a dark smudge that gave the promise of more houses, and- if they were lucky- a Burger King. As they drew nearer, Sam spotted a sign that read in somewhat faded letters, _Welcome to Desert Bluffs._

It was a normal town. Ish. Nothing special, except for the billboards advertising something called StrexCorp. _StrexCorp, _one of them said. _Believe in a Smiling God_.

"I told you," said Dean. Cas seemed vaguely puzzled as he stared up at the billboard. "Let's ask for directions and get outta here." He pulled over to the side of the road and parked the Impala.

"Good plan," agreed Sam. He climbed out of the car and looked around, turning slowly on his heel to get a complete view of the main street. "Here- the Wendy's." Dean and Castiel climbed out after him, joining him in surveying the oddly empty road.

"Maybe we can get some food."

"Does Wendy's have hamburgers?"

"Yeah, Cas, but you can't have three billion this time."

"I have never eaten three billion hamburgers."

Sam ignored the two and began walking towards the Wendy's. There were no pedestrians on the road at all, he noticed as he walked, which was uncomfortably strange.

* * *

><p>"Well, this isn't bad," said the Doctor, trying to be optimistic.<p>

From an ordinary person's view, though, it was bad. Upon leaving the TARDIS, they had immediately been grabbed by five people wearing the strangest costumes any of them had ever seen. From there, the three of them had been shoved into a deep purple minivan- despite the Doctor's assurances that they meant no harm, and Sherlock shoving them off irritably.

They had been driven to what appeared to be an abandoned mineshaft, and locked away. It wasn't actually a terrible mine shaft. It was fairly nice, even; with wall-to-wall carpeting and windows (barred, but you couldn't have everything) and a TV and some other prisoners who were all polite and conversational.

There was also a dead body in the corner. Sherlock had already examined it (the Doctor was rather put off by the way Sherlock had lit up upon spotting the corpse) and pronounced it dead from lack of food or water.

This pronouncement left John pacing the room, looking for ways to get out with increasing urgency.

"It'll be alright," assured the Doctor once John had given up and sat down. "I've got my trusty sonic, and those bars aren't made of wood."

"How's that matter?" John looked up and frowned at the little metal stick that the Doctor held in his hand.

"Doesn't do wood," said the Doctor cheerily. "Bit of a letdown, that."

John snorted derisively and placed his head in his hands. He was looking pale and seemed close to hyperventilating.

"Relax, John," said Sherlock. Resisting arrest and finding a corpse had cheered him up; no longer was he the one hyperventilating. "We've been in worse spots than this."

"No, we haven't!" John was indignant.

"No, we haven't, but I thought it might lift your spirits. It's what you all do, isn't it?" Sherlock sat and leaned against the wall, his fingers steepled. The Doctor, on the other hand, bounced to his feet and immediately started scanning the room with his sonic screwdriver.

"Interesting," he mused to himself, gazing at the screwdriver.

"What d'you mean, interesting?" John seemed afraid that something even worse was going to happen.

"Just did a scan for alien tech- I do that just in case- and we're on Earth still, I think anyway, but it's not much like Earth. Energy is all different. And these people-" he waved the sonic vaguely in the direction of the other prisoners, who waved brightly- "are human, but not quite human. I don't know what to make of it."

"Parallel universe?" suggested Sherlock, as though he faced these things every day.

"TARDIS doesn't travel between parallel universes."

"It did once."

The Doctor whirled around to face Sherlock. "How did you know that?"

"Your reaction. Eyebrows, furrowed, just barely. Hint of bitterness in your voice. Shoulders tensed. I would've been an idiot not to notice. Clearly, you've been in a parallel world. Something happened there. It's obvious. I assume it has to do with the girlfriend- it did seem odd that you hadn't broken up with her and just _left-_"

"Shut up, Sherlock," advised John, noticing the Doctor's brown eyes grow dark.

"I was simply-"

"_Anyway!_" The old Doctor was back, bouncing around the room and scanning everything, waving his sonic screwdriver around. His voice was slightly louder than before, and his eyes were still troubled. "There's something strange about this town. What's it called?" he asked one of the prisoners.

"Night Vale."

"There's something strange about Night Vale."

* * *

><p><em>The three visitors I told you about yesterday, who mayor Pamela Winshell assures us do not exist- have been carted off to the old abandoned mineshaft. Do not think about them. Do not talk about them. They do not exist. In other news...<em>

_...the Glow Cloud has sent us at the radio station some really excellent scones. All hail the Glow Cloud._

_...Old Woman Josie says that for some reason the angels haven't been appearing lately. She says that her particular favorite (she says she knows he's her favorite even though she hasn't met him yet) is taking a long time in showing up. She is not very happy about this, she says. She has a light bulb that needs changing..._

_And now, the weather..._


End file.
